Support Call Plan for Change Agents
“because a Lean-Agile Transformation is a major Culture Shift”
My Annoyances and Challenges Sound Like …
Inconsistent Advice
I am visited by two or more Agile coaches. Their advice seems or literally is inconsistent. There doesn’t seem to be an overall view point or Enterprise guidance on What we should do, When, and How.
Bad Advice
My Agile Coach lacks confidence or naively offers us bad advice, clearly lacking experience with the tougher issues we are facing.
Revolving Consultants
We have a revolving door of Consultants … hired for only 3 to 12 months and leave when the real challenges begin. Their time is spread too thin – I am lucky to get 30 minutes a week with them.
No Roadmap for Change
Shouldn’t we have a Roadmap for becoming more Agile, just like we do for the Products and Services we offer? We DON’T have one! It feels like we are Reactive instead of Proactive, constantly “putting out fires”. Shouldn’t there be prescribed Milestones that we achieve or this really a Big-Bang implementation?
No TLT
Who’s leading the show? I’ve heard that some companies follow Kotter’s 8 Step change process. We have NO formal Transformation Leadership Team established to guide the change … at least that we know of. Help make them Visible and communicate better?
Just Theory
My Agile Coach doesn’t walk the Gemba with me. They lack the context of OUR challenge and often do not seek to understand it. Their advice is just Theory and Academics.
Train M' Up Emphasis
Over emphasis on OR ill-timed Training. Failure to intentionally double back and retouch certain topics in Training, once people have had a chance to apply the learning to real work scenarios. I need relevant, just-in-time Embedded Coaching assistance!
Framework Annoyances!
Training offered by Consultants is tailored for the wrong audience. Stop saying Software and Continuous Integration to Business people! I need someone who has experience in and can talk with the various Business Functions and roles within.
Expertise on The Transition
Frameworks like Scrum, SAFe and LeSS are end-points and don’t tell you HOW [quickly you can] to achieve target state. I doubt that our coaches have taken companies successfully through major culture change.
No Attention on Management
No focused support and influence on changing Management’s behavior … To influence a role you should have experience IN that role? I doubt my Coach’s experience AS a manager. Management action is full of anti-patterns and is hurting morale.
Reactive Survival Mode
Everyone seems to be reacting to problems instead of proactively adapting to and embracing a new/better way of working. Certainly we could avoid much of the misunderstanding and resistance we’re experiencing? Too often it seems individuals are protecting their own interests. How do we deal with Systemic issues?
What I Need and the Organization must Seek
Problem and Opportunity Alignment
Let’s Align on the desired [end] state of the organization and WHY change is needed. Align Sr. Leadership on what Benefits they expect to get from this Culture shift and to Acknowledge the Problems of today’s environment. What does it really mean to “BE Agile”? Just How Agile is my organization trying to be? Not all companies/industries have the same needs, right?
Objective Measurement
How will we measure our progress, objectively? What do we measure and when? The right metric at the wrong time, or used by the wrong Role or Layer of the organization can cause serious problems.
Expectations Management
Managing the expectations of Executives and everyone affected by the change is crucial! Where do you really sit on the change curve? How much further do you have to go to reap the expected benefits? When can Stakeholders expect to see reduced Time to Market, Innovative Product introductions, Cost Reduction, Sunsetting of legacy solutions, etc?
Adapt our Structure
Most Organization’s will resist formal restructuring of HR Job Families and Reports-To relationships. Lean-Agile culture does not require FORMAL changes and this is a common point of misunderstanding and Transformation Failure. Value Streams must be identified and “work boundaries” redrawn VIRTUALLY around the people required to deliver that Value while reducing Dependencies outside of that work boundary. VS maps must be drawn and virtual structures identified, communicated and honored by ALL of management.
Governance - Role Model the "Right Way"
Great, we understand Scrum, have some semblance of Programs (ARTs) and maybe even decent Portfolio Teams. Did we just build a “Field of Dreams”? Someone must role model the new way of disseminating, negotiating and funding Strategy, managing Budgets, collecting Forecasts, making long-range Commitments, evaluating Return on Investments, allocating Resources (Hearts and Heart-ware), resolving conflicts between Initiatives, and building-up courage to simplify today’s high-risk, overly complex work environment.
David Offers You …
Veteran Experience
To Mentor someone through experiences which are new for them, it’s best if the Mentor has past broad and deep experiences involving success and failure. David was fortunate to enter the Management 2.0 economy early in his career. He had amazing Mentors which leveraged him through the financial recovery and market viability of several organizations. David was a key member of Leadership teams which saved company divisions from certain closure. He has established thriving Lean-Agile cultures in 9+ industries, serving as an internal Senior Leader of Operations Finance, Information Technology, and Product Development, and externally as a Management Consultant and Agile Transformation Lead Consultant. David bring’s a detailed perspective, having served in delivery roles such as Software Architect, Business Intelligence Architect, and Financial Analyst, which paired with diverse Leadership roles, gives him a “view of the Balcony” and System blocking issues. He has unique insight to identify the root causes and dependency chain effect across the entire System.
A Proven Game Plan
David has inventoried the various challenges that his clients and teams have faced over the last 25+ years. He has identified common themes for impediments and associated pragmatic actions required to work through substantial culture change. He has developed a revolutionary way to Decentralize Ownership for change that ensures a transition of authority and accountability from the existing Centralized reporting structures. He uses this insight and tool in his recommendations and relationship management with clients. He offers up direct access to this Assessment and Coaching Guide online, as another service.
Inspiration & A Way to Communicate
David will help you predict and avoid the misunderstandings and resistance around Culture Change by helping you craft Communique, time it appropriately, and disseminate the messages through Inspired Leaders. There’s obviously a lot of effort to garner understanding and support for this level of change. David has intense experience from his past leadership roles in Product Development, Technology and Finance.
Urgency & Direction Balanced with Diplomacy
We are changing how entire organizations run. Don’t sugar coat it! This is serious, hard work. You need a partner and confidant to assist you in driving the change. Someone who knows when to Push and when to Sit-back to allow the change to unfold organically. There is no “commonsense” in this regard. You need someone who is incredibly self-aware and self-less. Someone externally biased and intensely focused on the people and situation in front of them. The best approach unfolds dynamically and this requires an Adaptive approach to Life. David’s career is successful because he maintained intense Presence through the most difficult and complex situations. Persistence, integrity, credibility and authority in the areas of influence are key. David brings a balance of Diplomacy and intense Direction. He is your confidant through the entire change curve. You can vent to relieve the pressure of this work. He will affirm and encourage you to persist. David is a genuine partner IN the implementation with you.
The Solution
Retainer Agreement Format
The general approach is to reserve the right to call David on a recurring basis. This is a Retainer Agreement, ensuring access to David on short notice, while your environment is blocked and the symptoms are still traceable to root cause(s).
Mean Time To Response (MTTR) is crucial, to avoid chasing symptoms endlessly, missing the opportunity for timely learning and crucial adaptation.
Thorough, Objective Tracking of Progress
Over the duration of an agreement, David thoroughly tracks the context of your environment, the unique variables people are facing, the past guidance and key recommendations discussed with you, and your feedback on objectively measured progress. He provides Milestones and Metrics by which to evaluate all progress and benefit to working with him.
Proven, Prescriptive Roadmap to Drive Change
David uses a balanced approach of appreciative inquiry and prescriptive guidance. He leverages his proprietary model – Excellence through Presence, to analyze and …
- simplify the complex technical dependencies between Teams
- surface the interpersonal Dynamics within and across Teams at all levels
- resolve common anti-patterns caused by miseducation and past unsupported attempts to transition from Centralized Management to Decentralized Leadership culture
- synthesize Leadership Presence, maximizing their effectiveness to preemptively work through difficult organizational issues that block and diminish an Adaptive Organizational Capacity, aligning their desire to be transparent and vulnerable to Customers, Partners and Employees, and enabling more timely, objective support from Leadership.
Dedicated to You, in YOUR support of the organization
Teams often rebalance their purpose and work boundary, including team membership changes, during a re org or Lean-Agile adoption. This evolution causes baseline shifts in the fair evaluation and genuine support of Teams. Change Agents are the glue that holds the evolution together.
David offers other services focused on direct support of Teams. This service however, is all about YOU.
David will dedicate his energy directly TO a specific Change Agent (you), indirectly helping you to evolve productivity of Teams. This ensures self-sustaining capacity is created within the organization, and meets the commitment to you – to enable you to excel as the Internal change agent for your accountable area(s) .
David’s Change Agent assist service offers various options in terms of Response Time, Duration and Frequency of calls per Month. The cost of guarding David’s dedicated time for you is a far more economic than hiring an Agile coach to sit on-premise. Often, the Agile Coach is spread too thin supporting people who didn’t “pay for their attention”, often pushed/pulled between Teams, Programs and Portfolios.
Return on Investment Justification Available for Funding Approver
To help you justify the cost of a Support Call Plan with David, we have built a cost analysis that you can share with the Funding approver that you report through. Please submit your Contact info below, so we can share this info with you. There is no obligation. We ask for your contact info so that we can tailor our response series to best match your evolving needs.
Proprietary Model - Assessments and Dispersed Coaching
David offers an industry 1st, unique approach to assessing the origin of issues in the Strategic Planning & Delivery eco system. Finding just the next “concise tactical maneuver” which then ripples across the rest of the ecosystem, automatically resolving downstream issues, is the smartest way to achieve your Adaptive Leadership goals to optimize the Flow of strategy.
My clients enjoy transformation realizations in HALF the time horizon (3 yrs + for most) when hiring more traditional Executive coaching firms and Agile Consulting brokerage firms. Use my Investement Projection calculator to get a sense of the immense ROI from working with me.
Learn More:
Over the course of my 30+ year career as a consultant, I worked with many talented people across many industries, but David is a truly special. I witnessed his amazing influence with Leaders across the enterprise as he coached them to set clear Strategic Vision tied to Roadmaps and Backlogs, which enabled and inspired Teams to own Innovation & Customer eXperience. He raised the integrity level, vulnerability of Leadership, and the trust between Leadership and Teams. He removed the fear and barriers between Executives and Teams. Amazing.
If you are a Baseball person, I’d tell you that David is a “5 Tool Player”. His talents are as deep as they are wide. David is a dynamic individual that balances the “too much or too little line” with confidence and grace. I highly recommend David for organizational transformation or executive coaching. His effectiveness is clearly seen at the Teams and Tactical Layers or at the top of the enterprise with major Return on Investment and clear Value Proposition [there is personal and professional gain for everyone]. Great person, great experiences, and tremendous talent.
We needed to adopt a Customer Experience focus and an Adaptive Leadership culture, while completely changing our technology stack. David brought fresh ideas and changed the status quo by tirelessly, yet gently evangelizing the benefits of the transition plan to the organization. Bright mind, cool head, kind heart – these are the three attributes that make David the quintessential Team Builder.
I’m Intrigued.
Show Me Pricing Options and How this Service is Delivered.
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